Love, Death, and Redemption
by Memory Bleeds
Summary: "I don't love you and I never can. So take it like a man and walk away." The only thing harder than finding love is refusing it. The only thing harder than knowing your destiny is fulfilling it.
1. Prologue

"You can't love me."

"Why not?"

"Because…I don't love you. And I never can. So just take it like a man and walk away. Now."

Silence. _Drive the nail home._

"Elves have great hearing so I'm told, so why don't you listen and go back to the others? Leave me alone, like I've asked a thousand times." _Leave me alone because even I am not this talented a liar and all this pain is wasted if you see me shed a tear_.

"You're right. I can't love you. Or at least I shouldn't. How could I love someone so cold?" If I didn't know the whole story, if you didn't know how this was killing me, that would seem a fair response. Fair isn't how this story works.

"Blindly and stupidly. So, now we're in agreement, be a good little elf and go." Anger. So much anger. I might be able to push it to hate, but we still have to travel together. Hatred is not good in a group. I wonder if he's going to strike me. I would, but then again, I'm not well known for a good temper. I blink and he's gone. I wait a moment, hanging on to the practicality that's brought me this far until I know he's gone. Then I sink to the ground and cry like the child I never was.


	2. Descendent

Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. There's a reason clichés become clichés, after all. I never had the gift of ignorance, instead I had the "power" of knowledge. The knowledge that I was descended from a traitor to herself and her kind. That her mistake had cost thousands of lives. The knowledge that all of my foremothers had died paying for her crime, as soon would I. I know, while I do not remember, that my mother died in childbirth. A fairly common occurrence, except that she turned into a pile of ashes when I took my first breath. A less common occurrence. The women of my line share a strange sort of blood, along with one other creature in Arda. The fallen Maia we were created to preserve, and determined to destroy. Our father.

The knowledge of the making of the Great Rings of Power has been lost to time. No one knows how Sauron the Great managed to put his own life force in the One Ring, or why. Many believe it was to make the Ring stronger, to link it with the others. I know otherwise. It was his insurance. So long as the Ring survives, so does he. But the Ring can be destroyed, as those who have stumbled upon my tale already know. Never one to take chances, and always having believed in the power of the mystical number three, he decided to preserve his power and life force in a third option. A self-perpetuating option. Descendents. Sauron the Deceiver was also a seducer, and so ensnared an elleth named Sitari. Blinded by her love for him, she recklessly ignored signs of his evil. As he was crafting the Great Ring, he was also devising his way of having a more adaptable, less conspicuous vessel of his power and life. He wrought the One Ring of his own blood, and joined it with the Everlasting Fire. This was the only way to truly consecrate such great magic. The effect it has on living beings is quite different. Sitari bore his child at the same time of this consecration, a coincidence of his design. Promising Sitari that the consecration would protect their daughter, he cast the Everlasting Fire into the babe. Such a ritual was supposedly done by using his own sword as the bridge between child and fire, plunging it into the heart of his newborn daughter. She bore the mark for the remainder of her short life, as our legend goes.

Once the One Ring was revealed to the world, and his true intentions were revealed, Sitari was too deeply in love with him to leave, and too attached to her child. She hated what her lover had done, but could not hate him. He used her continuously against her own kind, until she was eventually killed in one of his covert attacks. His daughter grew swiftly, far too swiftly for an immortal elf or Maia. The Everlasting Fire is not meant to be encapsulated in the body of a living creature. Having been consecrated and raised by Sauron, she was entirely under his control. Then one day, she went into sudden labor and bore a daughter with no father. No sooner had the baby breathed her first breath than Sauron's daughter turned to ash. The everlasting fire had consumed her life, but created itself a new form. Such has been the life of every woman of my line. Around the age of fifty, she gives birth to a daughter and dies.

It was an ingenious plan. So long as the fire burns in us, the Dark Lord keeps his insurance. Furthermore, if the current descendent, as we have called ourselves, is killed, her force and power joins back with him. If the Ring is destroyed, the same occurs. If his physical form is destroyed, his spirit lives off of his two spawn, the Ring and the descendents. But, if both the Ring and the descendent were truly destroyed? He would face death as any other. Of course, destroying the Ring requires melting it in the fires from which it was form. Destroying the descendents is far more difficult. True, you can kill any of us like any mortal, although we are warriors by heritage, but the fire remakes us, passing this curse onto another descendent. When a descendent does not die in childbirth, the child springs from he body three days after the death of the mother. I do not know which was the case with me. The only way for the life force of Sauron to be returned to Sauron himself, and thus remove the curse and destroy his insurance policy of descendents? The prophecy has been handed down, mother to daughter by the necklace we all wear, our shared memory. I have four hundred generations of memory at my disposal, contained in the star shaped pendant around my neck. The prophecy says that the scarlet fellow will meet the maker and only by the maker's sword shall she redeem her line in death.

I've never liked prophecies. They have a ridiculous tendency towards the cryptic. The general consensus between former descendents and myself is that the final descendent must be killed by Sauron's sword. My opinion? The bastard isn't quite so thick as to kill me himself. But I've an eye for loopholes.

Now we come to the point? The "scarlett fellow", the final descendent? It took me years to discover why it said fellow, but the first part wasn't hard to understand. The shewolf who nursed me named me Scarlett.

Imagine knowing since you were born that you were doomed. I guess it's part of the human condition. Such a shame I'm not human.


	3. Daughter of Wolves

Very few know my "family history." As I mentioned before, our collective memories are handed down through a talisman worn on a necklace. The second of our kind, Nirya the child of Sauron's daughter, crafted it, in order to pass on her knowledge to her daughter. Sauron's hold over Nirya had been fixed since birth, but if her child was born out of his reach, there was hope that the Descendents could live free, and turn from tools to his sworn enemies. Since Nirya only put in such memories as she saw fit, as each descendent does for the next, I do not know what brought her mind out of his sway. What I do know is that when she sensed her time drawing to an end, she arranged to be on a solo reconnaissance mission, into the realm of the free Dunedain. She gave birth to her child near a camp of such men, and when they found Niriel daughter of Nirya, crying amidst a pile of ashes, they took her to be their own, never questioning the star-shaped pendant around her neck. Since then we have lived amongst many people, living many different lives. It is not uncommon for a descendent to live alone. We cannot share our history with others, we cannot divulge the secrets to truly killing the Dark Lord that made and cursed us. But we can fight him on our own, when the time comes. One by one, generations have gone past, waiting for a time when Ring, Sauron, and Descendent could all be destroyed. The time came during my lifetime. Since I shall have no daughter to pass this on to, I have left it for others. For one in particular. I pray that with this knowledge, we might be reunited. Alas, I have long since learned not to hope.

I'll start from the beginning.

I was born in the wilderness, far from any settlement of Man, Elf or Dwarf. A She-Wolf named Tharwaithiel found me near death, and nursed me along with her young cubs. For a few years, I grew and lived among the wolves. Since I was pink and grimy as all newborn humans are—a fact wolves find odd and quite funny—she named me Scarlett. Although I learned to understand the language of the wolves, and could speak it well enough to be understood—keeping in mind that I never could howl, growl or pitch my voice quite wolfishly enough—I astounded my pack by suddenly speak the language of Men. My mother, whose memories were freshest in the Memory Talisman, had grown speaking Westron and Rohirric. I learned my speech from these memories.

When I was six, my surrogate mother took me into an unknown part of the woods.

"Cub, I need you to understand something very important." Tharwaithiel looked down at me with a look I knew meant things would change. I remember knowing what was coming, yet being so afraid. Men hunted wolves, would they hunt me?

"I have nursed you and raised you as my own, but you are not truly a wolf, my Scarlett." I whimpered. Others in the pack reminded me of this daily.

"I know mother. But I am not a Man, as the others call me." She nodded.

"Cub, I do not understand your pack, or where you came from. You do not entirely smell like a man to me—" I smiled. Men smelled bad. "But you are neither Elf nor Dwarf, nor Halfling. You are certainly no deer or bird. So it is with Men that you must find your answers. You speak as one."

"From the necklace. My dam, I hear her in it." Tharwaithiel did not like hearing about the talisman. Magic made her nervous. The Wargs were wolves who had been enslaved and corrupted by ancient evil magic. True wolves have distrusted it since.

"Yes. Cub, it is time for you to rejoin your true pack. You must go back to Men."

"But I'm not a Man! I'm a wolf mother! I promise, I'll be a better wolf, don't send me to Men!" I was too slow, I was always cold, I couldn't smell or bite, or hear as well my brothers and sister, and I grew too slowly. They were casting me out because I couldn't carry my weight in the pack.

"Scarlett, I'm not punishing you, cub. You've been as wonderful a wolf as you could be. But now you must try and be what you are. There is destiny on you." I knew. I didn't understand the memories, or what they meant, but I understood I had a duty. I had already realized that if I tried to tell others what my necklace told me, I choked on my tongue and could not speak.

"But what if they hunt me? For being a wolf?" Tharwaithiel barked a laugh.

"Men are blind, cub. They see what your skin tells them. They shall not smell the wolf in you, nor shall they see your destiny. They shall see you walk on two legs and have no fur. You are in no danger from Men." Somehow, we both knew that this was not altogether true. But Tharwaithiel was right. I could no longer be in the pack. I had to find what I was.

She took me that night to the edge of a farm.

"Walk up to the door and call them. They have cubs. Perhaps they shall accept you as I have. As their own." I hugged her neck and cried. Even at this point, I knew I could be no one's child. I had seen memories of so many, many women like me. They were all so alone. But I could not stay.

"Goodbye, mother." I said.

"Goodbye cub."


	4. Days of My Youth

The family that lived on the farm was surprised to find a naked six year old on their doorstep. They fed me, clothed me, asked about my family, but could not keep me as Tharwaithiel had hoped. They had too many mouths to feed already.

For a few weeks, the story was the same. A kind family would take me in for a few days, but no one could spare their precious resources for a child who could not yet earn their keep. I grew at an odd pace, although my mind advanced quickly, aided by memories of ancestors long dead. Soon, my upbringing and the memories that haunted my mind were what made people turn me away at doors. I was a seven-year-old girl with the manners of wolves, the language of an adult and a habit fingering the strange charm around my neck as if I could hear things no one else could. I stopped asking for charity and started playing to my strengths. I wish I could say I was a good and gracious child, but I wasn't. I was a pickpocket and a thief. In my defense, I never took more than I needed. It wasn't as if I would be hired for farm work just yet. I spent a lot of time trying to catch glimpses of books. Unfortunately, books are the province of the rich and noble. I lived in a farming town. My limited ability to read had sprung as my speech had—from memories that weren't mine. Lionath was my location during the spring of my 8th year, and I found myself looking greedily at a book of local history. The shop keeper came over to me. I tried to run, used to being herded out of shops and chased off doorsteps, but he caught me with an aging arm.

"Hang on young lady." He said. I considered breaking his grip for just a moment. He continued. "I mean you no harm, just wanted to ask where you learned your letters." I had grown used to the choking hold on my throat that occurred anytime I tried to speak of my heritage and the curse it carried. The necklace would be too difficult to explain.

"I just look at the books. I work it out myself." It was half true. Other people's memories only work so well, especially on a child. The storekeeper looked at me in astonishment. It was known in Lionath that I was an orphan that had come in from Leseeth, the next town over. Lionath was a very small town, and all the other children were cared and accounted for.

"Did no one teach you?" I chose a truth that would be interpreted into a lie.

"My mother." He studied me.

"Where is your mother now?

"Dead." The flat voice startled the man. Instances like these had cost me the sympathy given to most children. He just nodded.

"Can you tell me about what you just read?" For the rest of the afternoon, I read aloud from the history book, mostly detailing local events and accomplishments of established farm families.

"I don't want to stay in the West." I announced as he gave me an apple to eat.

"Oh?" said the shopkeeper absently.

"I'm going to go to Rohan and then to Minas Tirith and see the White City." I stated with all the certainty of a child.

"Oho! That's a long way off—" He looked at me. "Who told you about Rohan and Minas Tirth?" It was a familiar tone of voice. A you-shouldn't-know or you-shouldn't-say tone of voice. These were becoming more frequent. Unable to answer, I bit my lip until the shopkeeper, Gan, came up with his own answer. "Did your momma teach you about Gondor and Rohan too?" I nodded. "And your father?" I shook my head. Most people wrote me off as a bastard upon receiving this answer. That was easiest. They stopped asking. I didn't like asking. "Where are you from, Scarlett?" Gan asked. I dithered, finally settling on, "The Wild." Gan look surprised. I started to worry. My fear of wolf-hunters hadn't fully dissipated. "Are your folks Rangers?" My eight year old self had no idea what a Ranger was, although it sounded familiar. It didn't sound bad necessarily, and certainly better than wolves, so I nodded vigorously. The anxiety on his face made my young self wonder if I had replied wrongly.

"The Rangers have never come looking for a child here. Are both your parents dead?" Unable to understand his interest, I kept nodding. The old man looked tired.

"It is best then, that you remain here for a while. I shall let you look at the books, and have food and a bed until then. Would that be okay?" I was hesitant. I had many memories of men with unsavory attitudes, had seen many in the streets, but had been too young to warrant much attention. Too young, and most likely too filthy. But a bed, food, a books could not be cast aside lightly.

"How long?"

It was two weeks later that I discovered Gan's intention. Two tall and weathered men came into the store just as it opened on a cold Saturday morning. They were speaking a language I had only ever heard in memory. It was the language of the elves! I hid behind the tall shelf, watching these curious strangers. They were unfamiliar in dress, manners and language, all the things that scare and fascinate a child, and I drank in their presence with wide eyes. Gan entered and stopped dead.

"Sirs." He said.

"Master Gan." Replied the taller of the two, "We're looking for the usual supplies."

"Ah, yes, sirs. As it happens, I have something for you that you may not expect." He looked around before his eyes alighted on me, peeking out from behind the shelf.

"Scarlett. Could you please come here?" I hesitated. What could the two men want with me? Was I to go and fetch something for them? I shuffled over to Gan, distrustful of the strange men. "Scarlett, these men are of your people." I saw the men exchange a glance. So these were Rangers. They certainly didn't fit the awe he described them with.

"Scarlett is an orphan, but she says she belongs to the Rangers. I cannot afford to care for her permanently, and she cannot hope for more than mendicancy here. Will you take her back among you?" I had never spoken foully before, despite having been exposed to many unsavory folk on the streets. Nevertheless the first thing to pop into my young mind was _Shit._

"No!" I yelled. "I'm not going with them!" I tried to run, but Gan blocked my way.

"Scarlett, you are best off among your own people. I cannot keep you here."

"I live just fine alone."

"May I cut in?" asked the tall man. Gan bowed his head yes. I glared, arms crossed. The man crouched to my level. "Now, why don't you want to come with us? Erothir and I are nice fellows. And there's a few children back with our folk you can play with."

"I don't play." Although it sounded nice. I had tried to play with my pack-brothers and sister, but they grew scornful of me early on. I was no wolf. Now, I scorned other children. I was no human either.

"I've never heard of a child that doesn't play."

"Now you have." I said impudently.

"Scarlett! Apologize!" Gan said.

"No I won't. You're not my father and I don't owe you my obedience. You're trying to sell me to these _men_ anyway." The two men exchanged startled looks. My words were stirring curiosity. This always happened with prolonged conversation. Eight year olds shouldn't talk as I did. Gan looked hurt.

"Now, Scarlett, is it? No one's buying or selling here, we're just trying to find you a home." Said the tall man again. I shook my head, frustrated.

"I don't have a home."

"Well, why don't you come and have one with us?" I didn't foresee an easy way of getting out of this. I calculated that I would be leaving the store with these strange men who seemed determined to adopt a child they had never met.

"Where is 'with us'?" The men exchanged a smirk. I wondered if Erothir could speak or just make faces.

"Now, well, that's something we can only tell our own kind. But we do move from here to there as the seasons change. Erothir's been as far as Rohan at times."

"Rohan! You've been to Rohan?" I spoke too hastily. "My mother…knew of Rohan. She spoke of it." I lied. Going to live with the Rangers was starting to sound more appealing. Gan saw this and exploited my wanderlust.

"Maybe someday you can go and see those places you told me about, Scarlett. The Rangers are mighty traveled people." I was still angry with him for trying to give me away like a chicken, but knew he meant no harm.

"Well, maybe I can see. But I am not promising to stay or anything of the sort." I added quickly. The tall man smiled. Erothir looked indifferent.

"Well, that's settled then. Get your things."

"I don't have things." How I hated those kind of looks. Pity looks. They were as bad as asking.

"Well, then I suppose we shall get our supplies and leave then." As Gan packed bags onto their horses, I shifted uneasily. The men got into saddle, and Gan met my eyes.  
"I am sorry I could not keep you here Scarlett. You'll be better off with your own kind." He meant well, but I had no kind, and this Ranger business was no less a lie than the past few years.

"Goodbye Gan." He nodded. The tall man lifted me into saddle and soon Gan's tiny store was gone from sight.

To this day, I never thanked him for what was the last act of human kindness I was to receive in years.


	5. Seek and Find

The Rangers were nice enough. Erothir was almost silent, but not in a cruel way. I got the impression that he simply had no idea what to do with a child. The tall man was very different. His name was Arathorn, and he told me that he and his wife were expecting a child very soon.

"I expect our baby will need an older sister to play with and teach him things. Would you like to come and live with my wife and I?" Arathorn seemed like a gentle and kind man, but I knew already that I was not destined for a life of belonging, nor family. I wasn't wolf and so could not live with wolves. I wasn't human, and soon enough, they too would turn me out.

"How do you know it is a boy?" I asked, ignoring his question. He looked surprised but answered,

"Morwen insists it will be, and she's generally right about that sort of thing. Although I know she would dearly love a daughter." I sighed, a habit I had picked up from not being able to articulate my frustrations. "I hope you know that I am not trying to replace your parents, Scarlett. I know you must have loved them, I just—"

"I never met either of my parents." The truth startled me more than it did him. After all, Gan hadn't filled him in on my background, and I had been almost as quiet as Erothir for the journey so far.

"I am very sorry Scarlett." Erothir broke the silence, causing me to jump in fright.

"Gan didn't raise you." He looked curious, but stated nothing else.

"No." More silence as he and Arathorn exchanged looks, undoubtedly waiting for me to volunteer the information. Children are not known for their reticence. When no information was forthcoming, Arathorn asked.

"Who brought you up and how did you come to live with Gan?"

"I brought myself up. Gan offered me shelter for a while when I told him I was from the Wild. I am sorry, but I did not know the assumption he would make."

"You are not Dunedain." Observed Erothir. I nodded. I was out in the Wild again. I was not afraid of being abandoned in the woods by these men who had not obligation to me. The woods were more home to me than the towns.

"You can be if you wish, Scarlett. My offer still stands." Said Arathorn. This time, Erothir objected.

"Mellon nin, may I speak to you?" I started.

"Elvish. That's what you were speaking in the shop." I blurted, forgetting my usual façade of ignorance. Both men openly gaped at me.

"Few of the race of men speak Elvish in these parts." Erothir's unasked question did not need to be spoken, but I did not answer it. I had no answer. Yet. I sought for a distraction, anything to give me time to think of a lie. Better to have been raised by wolves than created by the evil that sired my line. I understood that and was thankful for once that his curse bound my tongue. Seek and ye shall find, they say, and distracted the men did not hear the ambushers until they were at the circle of firelight.

"Lovely to see you gentlemen about here. S'been awful lonely, ain't it boys?" Called a sneering voice from a black figure at the edge of the light. Laughter rang out and I guessed that we were surrounded by at least eight men. Erothir gripped his sword, but both men's bows were out of reach. The speaker stepped closer so his face was illuminated in the flickering light.

"We've suffered a bit of misfortune as it were, and since you gentlemen have so much in plenty, we was wondering if you might be inclined to share." He said, gesturing to the supplies lying by the horses. Robbers. I curled my lip in distaste, but Arathorn responded calmly.

"Truly, these goods are for our kin, to whom we are traveling, but you are welcome to join us for a meal, if you like." The men laughed darkly, and my ears heard the tightening of bowstrings and the ring of steel.

"Such stingy folks! Your kin have no doubt food for you wherever they are, but we poor travelers have naught." More laughter. "I think it would be best if ye stand up slowly." Erothir looked to Arathorn, who nodded. The two men rose to their feet and I followed suit. I felt, rather than saw Arathorn's hand grip his sword under his heavy cloak, and wished for my own means of defense. Perhaps if we did as asked, it would not come to that.

"Alright, now step over toward the trees. Lads, saddle up those horses, we'll need 'em for such generosity." Leered the leader. I fought the urge to kick the bastard. A few minutes later, the thieves seemed ready to go. One of the men pointed at me, and whispered to the leader. I wondered if he could see my amulet beneath my tunic and wanted to steal it as well. I smiled, thinking of how it galled those who weren't born to bear it. Let him try and take it. The leader gave a big grin as he stepped nearer the Dunedain.

"We feel right bad about putting ye in such a position, out in the wilderness and the like. After all, it's no place for a little girl." I bared my teeth at the thief but his eyes were on Arathorn. "So we thought we'd be good citizens and take her off yer hands."

"I'd like to see you try you bloody cowards!" I spat. Arathorn shushed me.

"The girl is my daughter. She stays with me." The leader leered again.

"That wasn't what we heard, when you was talking before." Erothir drew his sword.

"You heard the man. She is our kin and she stays with us." I had just enough time to be touched by the Dunedains' responses when the first arrow flew and struck Erothir in the chest. Before I could move, Arathorn threw me on the ground and out of the way before making straight for the leader. Erothir struggled forward and engaged one of the other men, whose short sword was no match for the ranger, even wounded. The leader ran from Arathorn, but another stepped forward to engage him. He ran the thief through. The other archers seemed reluctant to fire with both Rangers in the middle of their circle. I had learned wolf-fighting, and the occasional fist-scrabbling of beggar children. These were men with blades, and I sensed I'd need something better than my teeth. I flung a rock at the man fighting Erothir, who struggled despite his wound. The rock hit the assailant in the temple, and Erothir dispatched his stunned opponent. I searched for another missile when I heard a noise too close behind me. As I turned, strong arms grabbed me, and the feeling of steel against my throat stilled my protests.

"Stand down." Commanded the voice of the leader. I could not move my head to look at him, but his rasping, sneering tone was unmistakable. Arathorn and Erothir paused, then lowered their swords. Erothir staggered, and Arathorn moved to help him.

"Kneel, over there." I felt my captor gesture towards the center of the clearing. I almost breathed a sigh of relief. They had what they wanted, now all they had to do was leave. Unfortunately, I was part of booty. The idea of slavery was unappealing to say the least, even if I was too young to truly anticipate what they had in mind for me. But the Rangers would be safe. Arathorn helped Erothir to his knees, and then knelt.

His eyes met mine, sorrowful and apologetic and I understood.

"No!" I screamed and thrashed despite the knife at my throat.

The thieves fired.


End file.
